Don Quixote, a national myth in the early Franco era

Abstract

Don Quixote, the novel and the character, were the object of a projective reading in the first ten years of Francoism, with different tones and emphases depending on the historical moment. In this paper, a critical review of the most representative ideas of this misappropriation is made, to try to understand its evolution, from the initial use of the character as an emblem of the desired imperial values –the desire to be and the selfless action of the good of humanity–, to the later identification with the melancholy of the misunderstood hero, passing through the ideological excavation in Don Quixote in search of the Falangist utopian impetus.